As Spun Glass
by kangeiko
Summary: A Centauri courtier contemplates survival strategies during 'A Tragedy of Telepaths'. Very mild LondoG'Kar.


Title: AS SPUN GLASS

Author: kangeiko

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Spoilers: No explicit spoilers. Set during 'A Tragedy of Telepaths'.

Pairing: Londo/G'Kar

Rating: PG

A/N: Many thanks toqueenspanky andathena25 for valiant beta-ing duties. Cyber-kisses to you both.

* * *

Dreyanna is not native-born. 

That is her only mistake in the eyes of the Royal Court, one that she attributes to her father's unfortunate love for the military. A proper Centauri can only climb so high when condemned to a backward world with no trees; no plants; no beauty at all. The story starts –

_In this place, only the Centauri shine. The girl-children's tresses fall to the ground as leaves; their tears run as rivers. The boy-children's eyes shine bright, brighter than the stars can be seen, and their laughter rings across the barren valleys. This is a world of death, and the only life that is bright and beautiful here is the life of the Centauri born as flowers in this world. _

Dreyanna heard this beginning countless times, opening up yet another story of a girl-child wedding a boy who would be emperor, or a boy-child waging battles and winning whole worlds for the Republic. Dreyanna heard this beginning and knew it to be a lie. There is beauty on Amarendos, if you know where to look.

She saw it only once, lost and alone after running away from her nurse. She does not remember why she might have done this, only that she became terribly afraid when her cries brought no help. Stumbling through the near-dark, scrabbling to keep her skirts from ripping on the rocky ground, she at last found shelter between two boulders and crouched down to wait for first light. She knew not what creatures might walk the night of Amarendos, only that they would be hungry. And cruel to the eye.

On the ground, starlight glittered. Dreyanna almost reached out for it in surprise before a keening from above frightened her back to stillness. One of the desert birds, all brutal beak and talons and razor-sharp, tiny feathers that shone like wet fur, diving for the sparkling, shimmering light spilled across the dust and rocks.

It was eaten in less than a minute.

Tiny dots of light, bright and beautiful and deadly, swarmed over the bird, pouring themselves down its throat, devouring it from the inside.

In three shuddering heartbeats, Dreyanna heard the near-audible hum of wings as clear bone shone through, shattering on the ground like spun glass.

Another heartbeat, and even the marrow was consumed, empty husks staring reproachfully at her.

Dreyanna grabbed at the trinkets bound into bracelets and scarves that her father had brought her; grabbed at the spun glass bones and flung them back out into the swarm of devouring light.

She does not remember how she survived the night, only that she woke in her own bed the next eve, worn out from keeping watch. She might have called it a dream, were her hands not torn open where tiny fragments of glass and bone had not wanted to leave her. Even dead, the light could still bring torment.

Now firmly entrenched within Palace life, she knows better than to speak. Speaking lets the light shine upon you and she has seen the result: the dead birds, glass bones fractured on the ground; courtiers, courtesans, children, heads severed and bodies distended in torture, all because they spoke and let the light shine upon them. No, Dreyanna knows better than to speak. She yields when she must, removing clothing and jewellery and sweetness like a reptile or a Narn, shedding the second skin that will buy her time to escape. Would that the Amarendos birds had had such defences, such understanding! Perhaps there would be some life to that world. No; it is because Dreyanna is a proper Centauri that she understands the treachery of light and beauty, and does not let it dazzle her.

When the Prime Minister calls her to his chambers and bids her to undress, she does not hesitate.

* * *

The Prime Minister, Dreyanna thinks, is certainly a curious man. There is, after all, an almost naked Centauri woman in front of him, but he can spare no eyes for her; no, his eyes follow the Other in the room. She wonders at this until a sharp rebuke rings in her ears, and "animal magnetism," the Other says, by way of explanation. 

The Prime Minister grimaces an acknowledgement and turns to her. It is then, when the whites of his eyes slide to her from the Other's gaze, that she becomes afraid. The Prime Minister, the Emperor-to-be of the mighty Centauri Republic, looks at his Narn companion as a dead man gazes at the sky. There is nothing in his eyes but stars and light; endless, refracting light from which he does not shrink. He is opening himself to goodness and martyrdom as if they were a drink, as if he could taste them on his companion's lips.

She imagines herself as a blanket for the night, snug between the softness of the Prime Minister's body and the rough edges of the Other's (she has no conception of the touch of the Narn, and the anticipation makes her shiver, the thought that the Prime Minister_might_, that he might guide her hands and the Other's; that she might watch them sport together as men are wont to do) and then this, this,_this _is what happens –

when she pulls her clothing undone to preserve herself

and expects them to follow

and when they do not

and she is naked

and all the Prime Minister will do –

yes, her Emperor-to-be –

all he will do is take her silks

and upend her into his bed for safety –

all through this, all he will do is watch the Other for approval.

Their Emperor-to-be has been sharing a bed with his Narn bodyguard. Or, if not, he soon will be. Dreyanna knows the signs; she can read them like humans read runes, deep in the unlit night.

She sees hollow bones, as clear as spun glass, scattered across the Throne Room floor. It is her death.

It is all their deaths.

Out of love for Centauri Prime, their Emperor will let the light into his soul, and it will devour him.

* * *

fin 


End file.
